Education leaders on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border say they are starting serious talks about how to a big, growing, yet largely underserved population: English learners, as well as binational students who travel regularly between Mexico and California.
About 1.1 million students, or almost a fifth of California’s K-12 public school enrollment, are English learners, meaning they have a language other than English spoken at home and do not yet have the English language skills to succeed in school. Four-fifths of them speak Spanish at home, according to the state education department.
The stakes are high for English learners, who lag behind their English-fluent peers in many aspects of school.
Last year, only 11 percent of English learners tested proficient in English language arts, compared with more than half of students who are not English learners. Ten percent did so in math, compared with 40 percent of their English-fluent peers. Only 73 percent of English learners graduate high school within four years, versus 89 percent of students who are not English learners.
In addition to English learner students, educators said there’s a large need to the 45,000 binational students, who include students who regularly cross the border between Mexico and California to go to school.
Many of those students are U.S. citizens who have lived in the U.S. for much of their lives until California’s high cost of living drove their families to Mexico. Families often want to keep their children in the schools they have been attending in California for the , resources and opportunities they offer, including the chance to learn English and become bilingual. And some, having lived in the U.S. all their lives, may not speak Spanish fluently.
Other students are U.S. citizens who may bounce back and forth between California and Mexico, staying with different family or with parents who may have been deported.
Binational students face their own challenges, often having to wake up hours before dawn to cross the border and get a long ride to school.
Last week, public education officials from Mexico ed leaders of the Chula Vista Elementary and San Diego Unified school districts and other American education officials to voice their intentions to collaborate to better serve those students.
“There’s a great need to our diverse population — particularly of our binational students, who have amazing talents, amazing things to offer, but at the same time unique needs,” Chula Vista Elementary Superintendent Eduardo Reyes said at the t news conference.
Children are supposed to live within the boundaries of the school district they attend, but there are exceptions allowed. For example, students can keep attending school in California while living in Mexico as long as their parents work at least 10 hours a week within the district. They can also keep attending if their parent was deported.
San Diego Unified Deputy Superintendent Fabiola Bagula said she used to be one of those students. She was born and raised in San Diego but had to move to Mexico when her mother lost her job.
“I understand the plight of many of the students that have to go back and forth to the border, and I also understand the untapped potential and the magnificent opportunity for us to forge this relationship,” Bagula said at the event.
One of the key ways educators said schools can better serve English learners and binational students is by having more bilingual teachers and school programs, such as dual-language immersion.
But some officials at last week’s news conference have said California suffers from a shortage of both multilingual teachers and programs.
Only about 1,000 bilingual teacher authorizations were issued in California during the 2022-2023 school year, the latest year for which state data is available. That same year, more than 16,700 new teaching credentials were issued to teachers in the state.
As a solution, some advocates and Mexican education officials have suggested expanding a teacher exchange program between California and Mexico, so that bilingual Mexican teachers would come to work in a California school for up to five years on a teaching visa.
But the program, which is sponsored in California exclusively by the state education department, has remained small. This school year, a total of just 42 teachers from Mexico and 81 from Spain will be teaching in 27 school districts and charter schools statewide, according to the agency.
“If you take into the huge population with Mexican heritage, Mexican background, you will understand that they have rights to receive an education based in their own cultural heritage,” said Aarón Grageda Bustamante, secretary of education and culture for the Mexican state of Sonora, who was at last week’s event.
Bustamante wants more teachers to come from Sonora and work in California, but his department has found bureaucratic obstacles here in doing so. “We are looking forward to strengthening our cooperation; we are eager to participate,” he said.
In an email, state education department spokesperson Scott Roark said it is “prepared to respond to the need of our schools and the willingness of Mexico to teacher participation here in California.”
And the shortage of bilingual teachers is hindering California’s efforts to offer more multilingual programs, such as dual-language immersion, educators said.
There are 966 dual-language immersion programs in schools statewide, and 290 school districts out of roughly 1,000 statewide offer at least one multilingual program, Roark said. State grants fund dual-language programs at 55 schools in California, he added.
The state has a goal of reaching 1,600 dual-language programs by 2030. But it has a ways to go on enrollment. Currently, just 16 percent of California’s English learners are in a dual-language program — far behind other states such as Texas and Wisconsin where at least a third of English learners are enrolled, said Edgar Lampkin, CEO of the California Association for Bilingual Education.
“There’s a lot of work we need to do,” he said.
